New community spaces for Rail Corridor in Queensway, Stagmont Ring

SINGAPORE – Beneath the intersection of Queensway and Portsdown Avenue is a mound of earth and some uninviting slopes, but the area underneath this busy viaduct will soon become a gathering space for the community.

The space beneath the Queensway viaduct is one of the upcoming “community nodes” that are being developed along the Rail Corridor.

The Queensway node will be completed in 2027, and could include a heritage gallery and a garden that pays tribute to the area’s plantation history, said Second Minister for National Development Indranee Rajah on Jan 17.

Speaking at the launch of an exhibition on the Rail Corridor at The URA Centre, she also said a community node will be developed around 2035 in Stagmont Ring, near to Yew Tee and an upcoming MRT station on the Downtown Line that was announced on Jan 6.

The exhibition, called From Rail to Trail, commemorates 14 years of partnership between nature and heritage advocates and various government agencies that helped turn the former Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM) railway line into a public green space.

The 24km-long line that stretches from Tanjong Pagar to Kranji was decommissioned in 2011 after about eight decades of service.

Each community node along the corridor is a space for the public to gather and participate in activities. Four have opened so far – in Kranji, underneath a PIE viaduct, at the former Bukit Timah Railway Station, and in Buona Vista.

A fifth is slated to open in 2025 at the former Bukit Timah Fire Station, after LHN Facilities Management won a tender to operate the state property in April 2024.

About 21km of the Rail Corridor is now publicly accessible. The remaining 3km – which includes stretches north of the Kranji node towards Woodlands Checkpoint, as well as a stretch near the former Tanjong Pagar Railway Station – will be reopened to the public alongside developments in those areas.

The Queensway node will be designed by a team led by architect Samuel Lee of Designshop, in collaboration with HKS Singapore, after the team beat 19 other entries in a design competition for the node that was organised by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and the Singapore Institute of Architects.

The team’s submission, titled Kaleidoscope Boh Beh Kang, imagined the 1.31ha Queensway node as a “kaleidoscopic tunnel” that would bring visitors back to the days when the railway was still in operation.

Boh Beh Kang, which means “no tail river” in Hokkien, was a village within present-day Queenstown, named as such due to a river that ran through it – it was believed that no one knew the source of the river.

Based on the design, the section of the Rail Corridor that runs underneath the viaduct will be lined with heritage exhibits, projections, artefacts and photographs that trace the transformation of Boh Beh Kang to Queenstown.

Ms Indranee invited the public to provide feedback on the team’s proposal, and said the authorities will work with it to refine the plans before they are implemented.

Designshop’s Mr Lee said he is excited about the project’s potential to foster “kampung spirit” among the area’s residents.

To that end, his team has proposed for modular furniture to be used under a section of the viaduct that will be set aside for a multi-purpose plaza called The Kampong.

“We envision that the space will be quite bustling, like a village square, with small kiosks that can be used as mini libraries, sitting areas, or a booth to sell knick-knacks,” said Mr Lee.

The URA is also seeking public feedback on the Stagmont Ring node, which will be developed around 2035 in tandem with the upcoming MRT station, and a future node at the former Tanjong Pagar Railway Station, to be developed after ongoing restoration works on the station are completed in 2028.

In September 2024, it was announced that local architectural assistant Kenneth Chiang had won an ideas competition for the former railway station, and Ms Indranee said on Jan 17 that ideas gathered from the competition will be studied for future incorporation. The exhibition traces the history of public engagement for the Rail Corridor, including the formation of the Rail Corridor Consultation Group in 2011, after it was announced in 2010 that land occupied by the KTM railway line would be returned to Singapore in July 2011.

Among the earliest proponents for the railway land to be retained as a continuous green space was Mr Leong Kwok Peng, then the vice-president of Nature Society (Singapore). He wrote in a letter to The Straits Times Forum that was published on May 28, 2010: “Imagine an almost continuous stretch of natural forest, fruit orchard and greenery from Tanjong Pagar to Woodlands. “Where else can one exercise uninterrupted by road crossings and enjoy nature simultaneously?” Mr Leong told ST at the exhibition’s launch on Jan 17 that he would have preferred for it to be kept more rustic and less manicured, but that its development has still turned out “beyond my wildest dreams”.

“I did not imagine that so many people would take an interest in the space and the Government would put in nodes to bring people to it,” he said. Mr Leong suggested that moving forward, the local and Malaysian authorities could explore allowing people to traverse the railway line across the Causeway from Woodlands to the old Johor Bahru Railway Station, if the line becomes redundant after the Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System Link is completed in 2026. Feedback on the three upcoming community nodes at Queensway, Stagmont Ring and Tanjong Pagar Railway Station can be submitted at go.gov.sg/RailToTrail The From Rail To Trail exhibition runs from Jan 17 to Feb 28.

It is open from Mondays to Saturdays from 8.30am to 5.30pm at The URA Centre.